Monthly Archives: December 2015

[Insert Europe pun here.] Top Five time. What a year. ’nuff said. Let’s do this!

5

Father John Misty

I Love You, Honeybear (Bella Union)

(If it’s not too wanky to start by quoting Oscar Wilde…) “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”

In constructing the ostentatious persona Father John Misty, Joshua Tillman has revealed more of himself than he perhaps ever could in the solo career under his own name. The character (and ergo, Tillman himself) is occasionally repellent, prone to fits of arrogance, caustic put-downs, and unbridled outbursts that are partly romantic, partly insane (‘The Ideal Husband’squarely falling into the latter during one of the album’s greatest crescendos). I Love You, Honeybear is thus not without its absurdity, and for passing listeners, at times it can sound downright repugnant and inconsistent. Yet dealing in inconsistency seems to be Tillman’s exact intention: skirting cookie-cutter definitions and instead cracking open the messy truth that no one person is defined by a single trait. Across I Love You, Honeybear, Tillman bounds from overwhelmingly soppy to unbearably cynical, cripplingly insecure to self-aggrandising and pompous. In doing so, he displays many clashing sides of himself, and while the overall picture is far from easily comprehensible, it’s much more realistic than the binary self-presentations that are so common in music and beyond. Every one of us is contradictory, never solely defined by a beautiful or ugly side, and Tillman opens up this idea in a manner which is bewildering at first, yet astonishingly perceptive on further listening. I Love You, Honeybear forms a strikingly clever enquiry into ideas of love and the self, while remaining dazzlingly entertaining, from the decadent instrumentation to Tillman’s knack for a knife-in-the-ribs punchline. Tillman finds new ways to explore identity, romance, and authenticity in a thoughtful way, while also delivering a fantastic sequence of some of the year’s lushest arrangements.

“Maybe love is just an economy based on resource scarcity / But what I fail to see is what that’s got to do with you and me.”

4

Kendrick Lamar

To Pimp a Butterfly (Interscope)

To Pimp a Butterfly is exhausting, uncomfortable, fearsomely complex, and completely necessary. Kendrick Lamar’s previous output succeeded in affirming the Compton-born rapper as an artist capable of greater nuance and political focus than many of his contemporaries. The bar was set high by 2012’s good kid, m.A.A.d city, but Lamar more than cleared it with its follow-up. Working with a sprawling team of A-list producers, Lamar has crafted a crossover success that hits hard not just as a musical statement, but as a powerful rumination on black lives in a post-millennial America, surveying the violence, hypocrisy and rage that reached boiling point amid the succession of horrific acts of persecution increasingly seen in recent months. Music that’s taken as a successful social critique or commentary often revolves around a protest message, and Lamar’s output is no different. What elevates him to a different league, however, is that his music works as more than reflection: while he doesn’t claim to speak for everyone, his fierce verses articulate the tangled emotions of so many, and have been recognised for their salience everywhere from music awards to educational debates about black culture in America.

From the personal exorcisms in ‘u’ and ‘i’ to bolder attempts to grapple with the broader concerns of a community or a nation, To Pimp a Butterfly unpacks so many complicated factors while always sounding heavy-hitting and coherent. To understand the scale of its impact, simply check the popular breadth it has received in critical and commercial camps – even on this very blog. As this whole list makes abundantly clear, I’m not well-versed in rap music, but To Pimp a Butterfly is so pressing, so unavoidable, so on-point, that its achievement cannot go unrecognised. It offers a profound statement on our times and the futility of defining a single community. The gut-punch that comes at the end of ‘The Blacker the Berry’ is the record’s agonising peak, and as Lamar’s vocal rises to a barely-suppressed roar, all of the fury, sadness and frustration in the face of injustices perpetuated (by the oppressed as well as the oppressors) is so tangible that it’s almost painful to hear. On hearing it for the first time, I had to take a few minutes to catch my breath. Given the album’s reception, it’s likely many others responded in the same way.

“I’m the biggest hypocrite of 2015 / When I finish this if you listening then sure you will agree.”

3

Jamie xx

In Colour (Young Turks)

It felt like In Colour was being listened to everywhere – and by everyone – in 2015. For my year at least, it’s formed an inextricable soundtrack to memories of summer and beyond. As well as being the album I have allegedly listened to more than any other this year (according to iTunes at least), there were snippets of its various segments being broadcast everywhere: through the open doors of nightclubs and high street shops, blasted from passing cars or bleeding through somebody’s headphones on a night bus, augmenting adverts on television and the internet, and dropped into between-set music at festivals. Speaking of, I caught Jamie xx’s cavernous set during this year’s Green Man shindig, and the reshuffled running order of In Colour’s tracks shone new light on just how immaculate and engaging each piece is when taken individually. Nevertheless, In Colour is at its most satisfying (which is to say marvellously so) when it can be heard from ‘Gosh’ to ‘Girl’. Drifting dreamily from one room of the club to another, In Colour lives up to its title with a full-spectrum tribute to the UK club scene, incorporating a range of styles in an inventive but organic blend. It’s a love letter to rave culture which still locates the bittersweet tinge that mingles with the joy, the isolation alongside the unity, and in doing so emerges as an inclusive and stirring whole. The softly-spoken beat-maker has stepped a little further out of the shadows with an inescapable but totally escapist invitation to embrace the noise.

“I know there’s gonna be good times.”

2

Sufjan Stevens

Carrie & Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty)

Sufjan Stevens’ seventh album is an intimate lament neither heavy-handed nor excessively fragile. For Carrie & Lowell, Stevens corrals a tangle of messy emotions and memories into a beautiful and deftly melodic collection, while eschewing anything close to straightforward catharsis. It’s touching, certainly, but in a way that becomes more acute with each fresh listen, the full depths of Stevens’ emotions only made apparent through familiarity and time. The death of the songwriter’s estranged mother (the Carrie of the album title) found Stevens racked with a fierce swathe of clashing emotions; an intimidating matter to approach, as he frequently references in his lyrics, chiefly on opener ‘Death with Dignity’: “I don’t know where to begin.”

This crucially makes Stevens’ unfathomable pain accessible rather than overbearing, and he unpacks the strands of his grief gently, touching upon feelings of disconnection or references to the mundane amid the emotional maelstrom. “You checked your text while I masturbated,” Stevens mumbles partway through ‘All of Me Wants All of You’, while on ‘Eugene’, he teases brief snapshots of childhood (“lemon yoghurt, remember I pulled at your shirt / I dropped the ashtray on the floor”) from his memory in an attempt to find something worth cherishing. All he can come up with is a general desire for closeness to his mother, which he was left longing for throughout much of his life.

It’s genuinely heartbreaking, but the revelations are sparing in melodrama, instead deployed quietly and with grace. Stevens’ delivery of “fuck me, I’m falling apart” during ‘No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross’ is more of an exhalation than a gasp; the sound of a man too exhausted to fully feel the weight on his shoulders. It’s perhaps telling that Stevens entitled the record Carrie & Lowell rather than giving it a more abstract, artistic name. It feels clean and factual, a little detached, but also redolent of a tribute stripped of excesses: modest, dignified, and with much left unspoken. In many senses, that’s exactly what the album is: a small, sad portrayal of grief and guilt, but one which is so balanced in its emotional scope that it still manages to bring a moving degree of comfort.

“I forgive you mother, I can hear you / And I long to be near you / But every road leads to an end.”

1

Joanna Newsom

Divers (Drag City)

For various reasons, I don’t think that Joanna Newsom’s Divers was the best album released in 2015, but I do consider it my favourite album of the past year. Naturally, there’s a difference between what we consider to be “great” works in the arts, and our personal preferences. Truthfully, there’s little doubt in my mind that Kendrick Lamar’s record is the most salient and hard-hitting release of the year, and numerous other albums both featured in and omitted from this list are wholly deserving of high praise. Several have subverted expectations to deliver original works that entertain listeners while also inviting them reappraise the abilities and natures of the artists in question. However, even after reshuffling the bulk of this list time and time again, I’ve always thought that Divers deserved its place at the top of the pile. I still can’t quite articulate exactly why it affected me so; as with The War on Drugs’ Lost in the Dream, I naturally felt that it was my favourite as the weeks ticked down through November and December.

Put simply, Divers entranced (and continues to entrance) me more than anything else I heard in 2015. From the second Newsom sings of “sending the first scouts over” in the dewy opening seconds of ‘Anecdotes’, a small shiver goes up my spine, and I feel that I’m listening to something uncommonly profound. Newsom sings of Time in its unearthly wonder while grieving over how it ravages all in its wake, pondering both the fate of the wider worlds she envisages around her (some fictional, some authentic), as well as her own position at its mercy. At times, her thoughts can turn fanciful, never more so than during the sci-fi sea shanty ‘Waltz of the 101st Lightborne’, whose narrator proclaims that “Time is taller than Space is wide” amid a tale of love, war, and the dichotomy between natural and artificial landscapes. As with most other compositions here, there’s a great amount to take in, but Newsom’s concerns are grounded in a pathos so perfectly transmitted that the emotional heft cleaves to the heart and mind: a clear-eyed understanding that little will last of us, but in the present there is great beauty to be savoured and preserved.

The musical accomplishments here are just incredible, from the range of instrumentation that Newsom weaves into the sumptuous whole, to the painstaking amount of time she spent overdubbing and re-mastering the songs until they gleam as brightly as they do in their final versions. You can really perceive the effort and attention that was poured into the making of this album. Newsom’s music has been strikingly detailed from 2004’s The Milk-Eyed Mender onwards, and by her standards, this level of care can almost scan as effortless. However, when placed alongside her peers, Newsom rises above the fray as an artist with crystal-clear vision and the tenacious commitment required to realise it fully.

For a more specific insight into what I loved about Divers – as well as several of the other entries in this list – check out my full reviews. For now, in closing, I’d like to celebrate this album as the one that spun a magic beyond any other this year. If anything even comes close to matching this record in 2016… I won’t get ahead of myself, but it’s safe to say I won’t shut up about it until next New Year’s Eve.

“And daughter, when you are able / Come down and join! The kettle’s on / And your family’s ’round the table. / Will you come down before the sun is gone?”

There’s a lot of emphasis on Top Ten lists as a general indicator of quality: maybe it’s simply down to ten being a nice manageable number. Anyhow, I’d like to stress that all albums in this whole countdown are fantastic in my book, and even the ones that didn’t make the final stages of this list deserve their props. Without further ado, though, here are my penultimate favourites of 2015.

10

Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Multi-Love (Jagjaguwar)

From its very outset, the third album from Ruban Nielson’s Unknown Mortal Orchestra sounds as if it has been dipped in acid – though not the corrosive stuff. The aesthetic of Multi-Love is strikingly viscous; Nielson’s production buffs his instrumentals to a dull gleam, while also squeezing them together into a tight, densely-packed ensemble. The resultant sound is incredibly thick with detail, but the hooks shine through in brilliant displays of pop nous: the wooze and languor of psychedelia made punchy and instantaneous. With the dazed subject matter sliding in and out of focus around drug consumption, digital disconnection, and Nielson’s own polygamous relationship (which, as the lyrics would have it, rapidly churned into a colossal headfuck), the overall effect is intoxicating and mildly hallucinogenic. New melodies ping out of the mix from every angle, from the bait-and-switch beats of the title track to the shivering funk of ‘Can’t Keep Checking My Phone’, right through to the yowling political frustration present in ‘Puzzles’ (“is it wrong to have a zone that isn’t monochrome?”). Multi-Love is Nielson at his most trippy and terrific yet.

“It’s not that this song’s about her / All songs are about her.”

9

Natalie Prass

Natalie Prass (Spacebomb)

Natalie Prass’ eponymous album opens with ‘My Baby Don’t Understand Me’: a five-minute ballad of lovesickness that inexorably rolls towards a union’s disintegration. So many artists have sung of heartache that the risk of overegging the pudding with unpalatable clichés is always high. Refreshingly, between the spacious, clean arrangements of the Spacebomb house band and the singer’s soft but resolutely sturdy voice, Prass’ music makes a clean cut straight to the crux of love turned sour. There is drama, but it’s so carefully dealt that the emotions are given enough space to blossom. As Prass herself is aware, the real sadness of heartbreak is not in a full-stop, but in steady estrangement: the “long goodbye” she repeatedly references in ‘My Baby Don’t Understand Me’. The gently soulful arrangements (many of which nod to a Dusty Springfield era of blue-eyed soul) lend an air of timelessness to these songs, so that even when they are cosseted in more sugary instrumentation (as on the twinkling of ‘It is You’), they still captivate. Whether Prass’ voice is set to strutting Motown (‘Why Don’t You Believe in Me’, ‘Bird of Prey’) or mid-tempo orchestration (‘Never Over You’), her voice has a way of coaxing an earnestness from the atmosphere around her. When she asks “what do you do when that happens?”, she sounds genuinely lost, perfectly capturing the weightless, sick feeling of total uncertainty that overtakes when imminent heartbreak looms.

“Oh what do you do when that happens? / Where do you go when the only home that you know is with a stranger?”

8

Courtney Barnett

Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit (Mom + Pop)

Courtney Barnett expanded upon the success of The Double EP and its champion offering ‘Avant Gardener’ to deliver one of the most entertaining and idiosyncratic singer-songwriter records of the past decade. Barnett’s style is delightfully fresh in its tumbling, tongue-twisting vignettes, but also familiar in its droll, conversational earnestness, sounding like one of your best friends taking the mic at a slam poetry event. ‘Pedestrian at Best’ lets loose a deluge of disclaimers about the level of hyperbole Barnett has waded through, and is able to cut her critics off at the knees while also having fantastic shambolic fun with its grungy thrash. Elsewhere there are terrific punchlines and turns of phrase peppering the likes of ‘Elevator Operator’, ‘Dead Fox’ and ‘Debbie Downer’, all of which pack a short, sharp punch of lo-fi indie. Capping it off are the pearls of quiet poignancy in closer ‘Boxing Day Blues’ and the touching centrepiece ‘Depreston’. Inventive, charming, morbidly funny and remarkably observant, Barnett thoroughly deserves her status as one of 2015’s brightest icons.

“I can’t think of floorboards anymore / Whether the front room faces south or north / And I wonder what she bought it for.”

7

Julia Holter

Have You in My Wilderness (Domino)

Even on her most immediately enjoyable recordings to date, there is a blurriness that consistently fogs the music of Julia Holter; the Los Angeles-based songwriter who soared to become one of 2015’s most acclaimed critics’ darlings. Musically, Holter’s fourth album is utterly gorgeous: delicate and gauzy in places, adventurous and untrammelled in others. And yet, it’s a whole that avoids easy pinpointing, thanks to her enigmatic lyricism and her restless proclivity for jumping from one style to another. Whatever meanings listeners tease out for themselves are hard-earned but ultimately unnecessary for the album to be appreciated and enjoyed: Holter’s is an enveloping, scented atmosphere where her commanding voice unfurls riddles which pick and scratch at the brain, yet whose final answers are somehow irrelevant. Many breakthrough albums of recent years are heralded as such when the artists in question fully realise their signatures and embody particular ideas, perspectives, and worlds with unfaltering commitment. On Have You in My Wilderness, Holter conversely registers a supreme joy at trying on different guises afresh with each new song, and in doing so, she has created something cryptic, malleable, and very, very beautiful, with character and elegance in abundance.

“I hear small words from the shore / No recognised pattern.”

6

Sleater-Kinney

No Cities to Love (Sub Pop)

Rock music powered by brute force so often collapses under the weight of its own self-importance or indulgence, with powerful intent swallowed up by cocksure posturing, endless yawnsome riffs, and sentiments so furiously obvious that they sound like snippets from a pre-teen’s diary. When delivered righteously, however, the elemental harmony of guitar, drums, and group vocals is near-impossible to resist. Sleater-Kinney had this sweet spot nailed throughout their original career until the mid-noughties, bowing out with the grand, dramatic The Woods, and with each member of the trinity retiring to other projects, from Carrie Brownstein’s Portlandia to Corin Tucker’s solo outings. Their surprise return as a team in January, though, was far from the sound of thrills reheated or a nostalgia joyride. No Cities to Love is as aggressive, purposeful, and hook-laden as any you’d expect from a group of snotty débutantes, but with so much more maturity and passion borne from Sleater-Kinney’s years of experience. From the fiery propulsion of exceptional opener ‘Price Tag’, the band stormed back in high gear for ten lean, mean, and on-point punk anthems, shedding the weight of a decade’s absence with the same effortlessness as one of Brownstein’s high-kicks. No Cities to Love transmits the fire of performance seamlessly: Janet Weiss’ ferociously-pummelled toms, the snaking guitar duets of Tucker and Brownstein, and above all, the righteous sense that there’s still work to be done. Great riffs are ten-a-penny, but you can’t fake chemistry as electrifying as this.

“No outline will ever hold us / It’s not a new wave, it’s just you and me.”

Five more fantastic records of 2015 to celebrate before I dive into my personal Top Ten for the year. From terrified art-pop to blazing brass compositions, industrial northern England playgrounds to Icelandic volcanoes, they’re a colourful bunch this time. They came, they saw, they helped us escape from evil.

15

Destroyer

Poison Season (Merge)

The release of Kaputt in 2011 proved to be something of a watershed moment for the Destroyer name. After eight albums of burgeoning if relatively hushed approval, suddenly Dan Bejar’s collective became overnight critical darlings, materialising in end-of-year lists from hitherto uninitiated sources. However, even with greater attention turned towards his project’s tenth studio album, Dan Bejar characteristically sniffed in the face of commentators and continued operating under his own steam with the same tight-lipped visage. Kaputt‘s eventual follow-up maintains the widescreen aesthetic of its predecessor, but feels less much less sprawling in its execution. Likewise, Poison Season perhaps lacks some of the knottier nuances that hardcore fans adored in previous records, but it contains musical and lyrical poetry worthy to rank with Bejar’s greatest peaks. Anchored by the three-part suite ‘Times Square’, Bejar has helmed another record of exquisite lushness, tempered as it is with a ragged weariness akin to ob Dylan’s more disillusioned ruminations. Even as ‘Dream Lover’ barrels out of the gate, its squealing, squawking brass sections and Bejar’s croak make the song sound as if the whole thing is on the verge of an asthma attack. Nevertheless, although it’s sometimes tough to gauge how earnest or sardonic Bejar is being in his writing, it’s hard not to be whisked away on the wings of the sumptuous instrumentation. Whether it’s the jaunty coda of ‘Hell’, the smoky waltz ‘Archer on the Beach’, or the starry-eyed romance of ‘Girl in a Sling’, there are so many moments of enrapturing beauty peppering Poison Season that Bejar’s wry wit sometimes slips past in the moments of magic.

“The writing on the wall wasn’t writing at all.”

14

John Grant

Grey Tickles, Black Pressure (Bella Union)

“I am the greatest motherfucker that you’re ever gonna meet,” John Grant bragged on 2013’s ‘GMF’, perfecting his talent for lacing irony with authentically bitter personal insights, in a manner that accesses a remarkable level of emotional honesty. Given a new lease of life with his solo career after the Czars disbanded in 2004, Grant has traded in painfully frank articulation from 2010’s Queen of Denmark onwards, though from the outset, a deliciously dark, wry humour has permeated his lyrics, constantly grounding his anguish as something tangibly human. Whether employed as a coping mechanism or a means of rendering his darker confessionals accessible, it’s this acidic wit which makes Grant such a fascinating figure: the close interweaving of sarcasm and sweetness enriching the whole as a reflection of somebody recognisably flawed. On Grey Tickles, Black Pressure, Grant turns up both the humour and self-laceration, whether poring over his HIV diagnosis, relationship frustrations, or the animosity directed at him from within and without. With John Congleton’s swift fingers at the controls, Grant simmers over twelve beautifully produced works of spleen-venting, at times tender and heartfelt, at others hysterical and fanged, and consistently studded with dazzling lyricism. Who knew the sound of a man opening the lid on his midlife crisis would be this much fun?

“Everybody these days thinks that they’re a badass.”

13

Lower Dens

Escape from Evil (Ribbon Music)

Having caught Lower Dens live in London twice in 2015, I’ve had ample opportunities to let Escape from Evil sink in since its arrival in spring. With each album the Baltimore quartet have broadened their palette, tidying the murkier edges of their sound and incorporating characteristics of krautrock, dream-pop and art-rock, binding it all in an increasingly glossy coating that doffs its cap to tasteful 1980s synth-pop. Following this pattern further, Escape from Evil is the group’s sleekest and most inviting package yet, and although it has its clear standouts (‘Ondine’, ‘Electric Current’, and the majestic ‘To Die in L.A.’), it took several months of sporadic listening before it had me completely compelled. The secret ingredient at work which benefits the group and lets Escape from Evil transcend its foundations is a sense of confidence which quietly, triumphantly radiates through these songs. With help from Chris Coady, Jana Hunter and her bandmates have sharpened their dexterity for strong hooks without jettisoning the shadowy unease that has always swirled through their music, resulting in smart pop songs which sound comfortable enough not to require bells and whistles. Hunter’s voice, which previously cloaked her music in mystery (and occasionally confrontation) has also ripened to a fine instrument in its own right, whether she’s holding a bellowed chorus note or revealing the tremulous side of her register. Matched with the sharp precision of Lower Dens’ gleaming music, it synthesises into a liberating experience; one which taps into a sense of triumph steadily earned and thoroughly deserved, moving past hurt and disquiet and towards hard-won joy.

“I’m just glad to be alive.”

12

Lonelady

Hinterland (Warp)

Lonelady’s sophomore escapes into a dreamlike fervour of lithe, guitar-flecked dance, despite being inextricably affiliated with the industrial landscapes of deepest Manchester. With Hinterland, Julie Campbell invites us into the world that apparently, only she was able to see amid the rubble and belching chimney stacks on the outskirts of the city, with the album mostly inspired by her frequent wanders through the terrain. Contrarily, rather than oppressive and stark, Hinterland is kinetic and filled-to-bursting with propulsive, irresistible grooves. It takes only a few seconds to hear her alchemy working clearly: the post-punk lineage of Manchester is refitted to something equally cavernous, but offering a much more joyous form of release. Mammoth jams such as ‘Silvering’ and ‘Groove it Out’ are at their most potent when heard performed live, but the precise alchemy is translated almost perfectly onto record, with Campbell’s ear for well-timed details seldom failing her on this nine-track odyssey that will appeal to fans of LCD Soundsystem and La Roux alike. If Hinterland is a party happening inside her head, then at least she remembered to invite the rest of us along.

“Put a record on / Make a connection.”

11

Everything Everything

Get to Heaven (Sony RCA)

One of the most pleasant surprises of 2015, Everything Everything’s third album had me holding up my hands and admitting I had grossly underestimated the Manchester group. Although I found Arc largely enjoyable in 2012, for some reason I was prepared to shrug my shoulders at its follow-up. This was probably out of some misplaced sense of fatigue with the group’s output, but the delightful truth is that in a righteous world, Get to Heaven should have catapulted Everything Everything to the higher echelons of contemporary British flag-bearers. If nothing else, the group (and frontman Jonathan Higgs, in particular) deserve recognition for bringing a clear focus and palpable heart to mainstream alt-rock. With its eye on current affairs and the extreme terrors faced by the world over the past two years, Get to Heaven holds up a mirror to the chaos of the 21st Century, assimilating the most troubling concerns of our time and reflecting its urgent reactions in blasts of fiery, inventive guitar music, packing choruses that also happen to stick to the brain with the ferocity of Matilda-brand superglue. Higgs has admitted he was anxious that he had written a repugnant “horror bible” after penning the album’s frequently upsetting lyrics. For my money, he shouldn’t apologise for sticking to his guns and helping to create a conscientious and compassionate album that defiantly broadcasts against violence and complacency alike. Get to Heaven is spectacular, with its bounteous supply of savvy melodies only outmatched by its humanity.

Grimes’ Claire Boucher: thought she might be higher than this (photo: consequenceofsound.net)

From steely-eyed troubadours to longhair guitar wizards, gothic angels to ivy-trippers and electro-engineers, five more heroes of 2015 are unveiled as the Album of the Year list continues. Cue credits:

20

Laura Marling

Short Movie (Virgin)

My admiration for Laura Marling has been well-documented on this blog, and I’m slightly conscious that ranking her latest album at twentieth only two years after she took my Album of the Year accolade in 2013 possibly makes it appear that Short Movie has left me cold. Granted, it’s a record that possesses less composure and coherence than most of her previous offerings, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed hearing Marling take a slight shift in direction for her fifth album. Following the comprehensive concepts of Once I Was An Eagle, Marling has allowed her impulses to take greater prominence over her work, emerging with a dusty, limber-sounding record that breaks the artist’s own established traditions in small but intriguing ways (note the album title, the production credit, and – yes – the electrics). She may not be tearing up the rulebook, but by relaxing her grip and letting one or two tremors sneak into her vocals, she’s allowing the edges to fray a little in a fashion which is rather becoming after years of powerful – if occasionally slightly precious – songwriting. Whether it ends up standing as a non-sequitur in her canon, or the first step towards a new long-term path, Short Movie is a pleasingly idiosyncratic addition to an increasingly rich discography.

“I’m going back East, where I belong.”

19

Grimes

Art Angels (4AD)

Witnessing Grimes’ vertiginous rise to cult superstardom has proved simultaneously surprising and understandable. In every way, Claire Boucher goes against packaging herself as a smoothed-out star, instead roughing up the edges, fucking up the margins, embracing mess and scribbling over everything with her auteur instincts. Every aspect of her output as Grimes is smothered in her inky fingerprints, from self-designed album artwork to self-directed music videos, and a signature squeal that serves as both pastiche of and riposte to auto-tuned affectations. Away from all the eye-popping visuals and proclamations, however, it’s Boucher’s uncanny knack for sticky melodies that has brought her crossover success, and on Art Angels her instrumental range and production skills alike are raised to a completely new level. Away from its gaudy video, ‘Flesh Without Blood’ is one of the year’s catchiest and highly-anticipated pop singles, and it’s flanked on all sides by equally appealing material, with highlights including the earnest ‘Pin’, Janelle Monáe’s cameo on the whomping ‘Venus Fly’ and ‘Butterfly”s sun-kissed bop. At the centre of the album awaits a glut of songs which are among the catchiest, most addictive pop nuggets of the year, with ‘Kill V. Maim’ arguably Boucher’s greatest (and craziest) achievement to date. Decriers have railed against Boucher with (rather rote) style-over-substance takedowns, but Art Angels is a pure grab-bag of fun from a distinctive and undeniably interesting artist. For the converted, she’s served up what will likely be considered the pop album of 2015, but for those new to Grimes’ weird universe, her web has never been cast so wide, nor so alluring.

“I’m only a man, do what I can.”

18

Floating Points

Elaenia (Pluto)

It’d be so easy to dislike Sam Shepherd if his output wasn’t so damn wondrous. The producer-composer-songwriter-DJ is yet to turn 30, and he’s already trained in classical music writing, boasts a PhD in ‘The Neuroscience of Pain’, and has garnered heaps of acclaim for his DJ sets as Floating Points, which are enjoyed around the globe. Yes, he can probably turn his talents to anything. If you can set aside the crippling jealousy, however, surrendering to his first full-length record as Floating Points is a true treat: a seven-track set that unspools as one shuffling suite of jazz rhythms, spiralling keys, and blissful string arrangements. Shepherd has taken the twinkling ambience of his Shadows EP and polished it to a dazzling gleam, with greater emphasis placed on rhythm and percussion this time around. It’s easy to pause and marvel at specific passages in the mix, such as those that pepper ‘Silhouettes’; a three-part epic which gradually heats from a skeletal jam into a graceful, string-soaked hymn and back again. Elsewhere, Shepherd reworks flavours of 1980s house into bright new forms, reaching peaks in the Tangerine Dream ebb and flow of ‘Argenté’ as well as the bustling cacophony of ‘Peroration Six’. For all its singular moments of beauty, however, it invites being experienced as a single, enveloping listen; whether enjoyed as a headphone-coddled odyssey or an ambient backdrop, Elaenia is a heavenly electronic vista to savour.

“…”

17

Waxahatchee

Ivy Tripp (Merge)

DIY singer-songwriter material can all-too-easily be dismissed as bedroom naval-gazing, plagued by shonky production and self-indulgent lyrical whims. Katie Crutchfield, however, soars above her limitations with her brand of stirringly earthy candour. Flanked by her sister and a small coterie of supporting musicians, Waxahatchee’s third album is Crutchfield’s most confident and warm creation to date, its emotional power lingering long after its 37 minutes are up. The sound is fuller and denser than on 2013’s Cerulean Salt, with Crutchfield’s steely guitars attaining a vulnerable grace when paired with her defiant voice: the kind of heart-on-sleeve croon that can suddenly reveal itself as a roar. What ties Ivy Tripp‘s disparate confusions together is Crutchfield’s knack for disarming melodies, the kind that sink in gradually and with all the gently nagging warmth of a friend on the other end of a phone line. Ivy Tripp deals in simple merits, but the overall effect is far more emotionally moving than the sum of its modest parts.

“You’re the only one I want watching me.”

16

Tame Impala

Currents (Fiction)

Living up to 2012’s Lonerism – a modern classic in the estimations of many an audiophile – looked set to be a near-impossible feat, but Kevin Parker stuck to his guns for Album #3, maintaining a steady and committed trajectory away from guitar workouts and finally settling beneath a rainbow-throwing disco ball. Currents begins by tumbling through the ear-popping vortex of ‘Let it Happen’; a seven-minute masterpiece in which Parker flexes his muscles as songwriter, producer, and sonic experimentalist, while also providing the perfect launchpad for the kaleidoscopic journey to follow. As with both Innerspeaker and Lonerism, we are given thorough access to Parker’s contemporary headspace, and this time his preoccupations prove to be mixed: here he picks through the wreckage of a relationship turned sour, the pressures of critical and commercial expectation, and the multi-layered anxieties of personal and professional transformation. It’s testament to his assurance and magnificently broad instrumental mastery that the results never sound anything less than great fun, whether they’re laden with hooks (‘The Moment’, ‘The Less I Know the Better’) or tipping into weirder territory (‘Past Life’, ‘Disciples’). Currents may not match Lonerism pound-for-pound, but in many respects, it blasts through any remaining preconceptions of where Parker’s capabilities begin and end. On this evidence, it’s safe to trust his conviction in wherever he decides to travel next.

(Also, it deserves a high spot on this list given it bequeathed the world the most baffling and strangely hilarious music video of the year. Catch it below. Sodding Trevor.)

At first glance, I flippantly thought 2015 seemed a little weaker than the past few years in music, with fewer albums leaping out at me and taking my attention by force. However, on sifting back through some of my favourites of the year for reappraisal, I’ve noticed that many of these albums only really blossom when the details hidden within them are held up to the light. As Hayden Thorpe sang on last year’s fantastic Wild Beasts record, “in detail you are even more beautiful than from afar”: it’s a sentiment true to many of the albums I’ve listed below. It’s easier to glance past and oversimplify the multifaceted beauty of a fifty-minute record than it is to truly lose oneself in the grace-notes sprinkled within. As such, it was only in spending the past few weeks poring over each album once again that I fully noticed the magic many of them hold. The list as it now stands has undergone a serious reshuffle from its November incarnation, and the 25 albums I’ve settled on are all worthy of (re)discovery.

Without any further waffling, here are my favourite offerings from the assorted delights of 2015. Please bring further listening suggestions, gripes, general feedback, and headphones, and enjoy discovering some of these gems anew; I sure did.

25

Ought

Sun Coming Down (Constellation)

There’s a palpable aggression to Ought’s second album which jostles angrily with the more playful tendencies exhibited on last year’s More Than Any Other Day. Recorded live to tape, these eight songs bottle the same fidgety, scrappy tension that Tim Darcy wails of in his patchwork lyrics, manifest in the walls of relentlessly scrappy guitars that bear down on the listener. Propelled by the white-hot bass runs of Ben Stidworthy and Tim Keen’s clattering drum fills, the band’s high-strung brand of post-punk congeals into a mess simultaneously sludgy and electrifying. It’s the sound of a band’s anxieties, excitements, and “fuck it” impulses pushing them to sonically thicker and more bitingly bleak terrain, always teetering on the precipice of chaos.

“This is the high watermark of civilisation.”

24

Public Service Broadcasting

The Race for Space (Test Card Recordings)

If 2013’s Inform-Educate-Entertain was an inviting smorgasbord, serving as an assorted taster for Public Service Broadcasting’s brand of inventive sampling and squeaky-clean pop nous, then The Race for Space is their first fully cohesive offering. By plunging determinedly into a single (though deliciously broad) concept, the sample-happy alchemists have emerged with a listen comparable to a Hollywood drama, chronicling the history of space travel in all its peaks and troughs from the 1950s to the present day. From the Chic-channelling funk of ‘Gagarin’ and doomy washes of ‘Fire in the Cockpit’, through to the spine-tingling triumphs of ‘Go!’ and ‘The Other Side’, The Race for Space blends its sci-fi smarts with gleaming instrumentation, in a mellifluous display which is even more potent when caught in a live setting. Taken as a whole, it’s an honest-to-goodness delight, and one which allows listeners to engage their heads as wilfully as they surrender their ears to the plentiful melodies.

“They’re travelling over the back side of the Moon now.”

23

Alabama Shakes

Sound & Color (Rough Trade)

If Alabama Shakes’ début felt a little too in thrall to well-entrenched blues conventions at times, their ferocious follow-up flips its burning gaze forwards, abandoning the more rigid confines of yesteryear in favour of sojourns into howling soul, guttural funk, and supercharged riff-rock, with an earworm sensibility engaged more or less constantly. Those who feel that The Black Keys’ past few LPs have lacked the stomping weight of their earlier material will be utterly enamoured by the powerful blasts emanating from the likes of ‘Don’t Wanna Fight’ and ‘Gimme All Your Love’. Delivered in the lung-dredging wails of one-woman-hurricane Brittany Howard (surely one of the most magnetic and charismatic figureheads in contemporary rock and roll), the peaks and troughs of Sound & Color are a vibrant addition to the guitar-wielding class of 2015.

“Come people / You got to give a little, get a little.”

22

Björk

Vulnicura (Sony)

“Moments of clarity are so rare, I’d better document this,” Björk mumbles shakily at the opening of her ninth full-length, singing from the eye of a slow-motion whirlpool of strings and off-kilter rhythms. Over the nine skeletal compositions which follow, the Icelandic polymath does her best to wrestle with the all-encompassing distress that submerged her during her painful split from Matthew Barney, her partner of more than a decade. The album’s sleeve notes subtitle each song in sequence, fixing each one to a particular point of the narrative: from nine months before the relationship’s disintegration through to a year or so after the events. While at first these indicators seem a little too OTT to succeed authentically, they in fact give a glacial, icy apprehension to the songs as they pass, Björk shifting to new scenes and emotional coils as the break-up looms and recedes. Drifting eerily between wrenching pain (the oppressive, hammering ‘Black Lake’) and ghostly detachment (“I wish to synchronise our feelings,” she proffers like a non-computing robot), the singer imbues her record with not only grief, but with an inexorable dread, the disquieting instrumentals articulating the great peaks of overwrought turbulence and the valleys of emptiness. Once again, Björk reminds listeners of her unique position as an avant-garde artist with significant crossover appeal, distilling her pain into forms both impressive and (arguably) accessible.

“As I enter the atmosphere / I burn off layer by layer.”

21

Blur

The Magic Whip (Parlophone)

Graham Coxon and Stephen Street resuscitated a clutch of Blur’s mid-tour recordings laid down in Hong Kong in 2013, and this series of curios eventually crystallised into the beloved band’s first album since 2003’s wonky Think Tank. Fans hoping for a more fitting conclusion to Blur’s turbulent saga may well be satiated by this rather harmonious collection, but The Magic Whip actually found the band sounding as confident and invigorated as they ever had on record, with the end result far from one final victory lap. Comfortable with their musical prowess and interpersonal chemistry, this wasn’t the bolshy Blur of their mid-90s heyday, but instead the more considered, textured group responsible for past classics Blur and 13. Synthesising elements from the solo endeavours of Coxon and Damon Albarn, and with a full-bodied chemistry courtesy of Alex James and Dave Rowntree, The Magic Whip is an occasionally skewed but ultimately sparkling addition to the great band’s canon.

“I broadcast / Buzzing on another day now / All for a high score / Something out of nothing.”